Glenn Greenwald mocks Time magazine

12/11/13 5:18 PM EST

Glenn Greenwald, the journalist who broke the story of Edward Snowden's National Security Agency leaks earlier this year, mocked Time magazine for picking Pope Francis over Snowden for their "Person of the Year."

In an email to Talking Points Memo and on Twitter, Greenwald called Time magazine "meaningless" and "cowards of the decade" for not choosing Snowden, whose revelations have been and continue to be a major news story that has shaken the government surveillance industry.

"It's a meaningless award from a meaningless magazine, designed to achieve the impossible: to make TIME relevant and interesting for a few fleeting moments," Greenwald told TPM.

Though Greenwald praised Pope Francis, he told TPM that it's clear Snowden has by far influenced this year's news events more than anyone else.

" If it were a serious magazine with minimally brave editors, then of course Snowden would have been chosen, but I never expected him to be precisely because that's not what TIME is," Greenwald said.

Greenwald tweeted out a link to an Onion video calling Time a "magazine for children" with colorful info-bubbles and easy-to-understand writing: